Article: The Renaissance

I am not talking about the new Q-Tip album (which is great by the way), I am talking about the era Hip Hop’s in right now. Hip Hop is dead? Hip Hop sucks? The future looks bad for Hip Hop? There’s no hope for Hip Hop anymore? No; we are now experiencing the rebirth of a damn great genre.

A while back I had a discussion with someone about Hip Hop and the state it’s in. He asked me if there will ever be another era like the ‘Golden Era’ and I could simply answer that question with ‘yes’. People are still (copying Nas?) saying that Hip Hop is dead but I am convinced that the opposite is true.

Yeah, I know there’s a lot of crap nowadays but there can’t be good stuff without bad stuff on the other side. That brings me to my first question; Why are people always aiming on negative things? Let artists like Lil Wayne and Soulja Boy (obvious examples) do their thing but why the hell would you follow them and analyze their music like they are the King and Queen of England?? Again, let them do their thing and let them get rich, but just ignore it when you dislike it and focus on artists that are good. Why focus on the bad when there’s a lot of good?

Hip Hop commercialized, but I am sure one day there will be a new ‘hype’ and Hip Hop can move on as a genre under the radar. It’s just like every other musical hype; for some time it will be all over MTV and BET, fans will complain because “the mainstream sucks” but after a (small) amount of time the hype will be over; same will happen with Hip Hop. Trust me on that one.

Another question I think about a lot is ‘Why are lots of people always sleeping on good (but unknown) stuff??’. I think it’s because lots of Hip Hop-heads reminisce to the Golden Era too much. It’s not a bad thing, it was a great era, but please… PLEASE stop only caring about new releases by Nas, Jay-Z, Wu-Tang Clan and more artists like that and also pay attention on stuff you don’t know yet. Yeah, if you think close-minded like that and if you ignore the rest; then Hip Hop sucks pretty hard right now. If you free your mind and also download/buy music you don’t know yet and if you also pay attention to music that doesn’t come from the G.O.A.T.‘s, then Hip Hop is a fucking beauty nowadays.

Like you maybe now I own a blog and I have to admit I am a big fan of ‘New School’. Of course I also love music from the 90’s, but the biggest part of the albums on my blog are post-2000. You can’t imagine how many great releases there are since 2000 and how much I love recent releases! For example; People Under The Stairs, Giant Panda, Ohmega Watts, Blue Scholars, Common Market, Sage Francis, Nujabes, Kero One, The Procussions, Panacea, Atmosphere, Shad and the list goes on and on and on.

The problem is, lots of people are sleeping on those releases just because of 1) plain ignorance or 2) a lack of knowledge. And that’s the problem nowadays. We need to spread the word about good music and ignore bad music.
I want to give a shout-out to all great blogs, sites and people that are trying to get the word out and that put their focus on slept-on artists! And there’s something I want to ask all Hip Hop-heads; please think outside the box and if you find an album/artist that you don’t know, just check it out instead of skipping it because you never heard of it and because media/websites don’t publish about it.

I love Hip Hop. It’s something I can say without feeling ashamed because it’s a beautiful genre and it’s getting better and better. If we all support the scene, ignore bad artists, focus on good music and spread the word about it, then I am sure one day we will enter a new Golden Era.